Shadow Dragon
by Emesis
Summary: Another "Sephy returns" fic... With a slight twist. Short and sweet. Some characters die, but I'm not spoiling it!


The green beauty that was the Lifestream gushed out of the earth and surrounded the countryside, bathing it in an eerie azure light.  
  
That was when Sephiroth came back.  
  
Just as his material body was destroyed utterly by Cloud's wicked sword, his spirit rematerialized within the body of the greatest creature in his realm:The Shadow Dragon. The creature, whom was the original inhabitant of the Northern Crater, finally met its end at the hands of Sephiroth's volatile spirit. Its own essence was cast out of its body into the vortex of worlds, and Sephiroth's cavorted in, joyful that he could have a new form. Of course, it's first action was to collapse the cave network within the Crater in a desperate attempt to slay Cloud and his companions. They escaped without much trouble. The Shadow Dragon's terrible maw snapped open, and emitted a terrible roar. The creature which held Sephiroth's spirit crashed out of the cave, crying bestial screams of evil vengeance. The man/dragon was by now so overcome with hate, rage, and confusion that it could only think of one thing to do:Kill Cloud.  
  
Cloud and his companions' airship crashed unceremoniously into the mountain which housed the great crater, formed by a collossal meteorite in ages long past. Barret had fallen from the airship while in flight, and now Tifa was gone too. She had been so badly jarred by the impact that she had fallen into a deep coma, and it was obvious to anyone that she was dying. The whole group was quite injured. Cloud felt his arm, which ached tremendously. "I think it's dislocated..." he said quietly. However, no one really cared about the state of his arm, as they were grieving. Then the Shadow Dragon burst out of the snow, and all was chaos.  
  
It took a moment for Cloud's mind to register the fact that he was flying. One moment he was looking at the clean, white snow, the next he was, for some reason, rocketing into the stratosphere. The warrior looked down, and saw his reason:The Shadow Dragon was causing havoc below him, and had apparently come from underground. Then Cloud plumped to the hard, cold earth. Fortunately for him, the Shadow Dragon did not notice its most hated enemy standing right before it. Instead, it noticed a quick and convenient way to feed:Icicle Inn.  
  
Within 5 minutes Icicle Inn had been enveloped by the Shadow Dragon's pure shadow energy. The bestial instincts of the creature had by now completely overtaken Sephiroth's intellect, and made him hungry for the flesh of humans. The creature devoured the people of the village with insane glee, and showed no mercy. Cloud was immensely disgusted by the dragon's behavior, and charged into battle. The fight was one of legendary proportions. Cloud began the melee by running towards the creature, raising his massive blade, and slicing into its huge dark stomach. It roared in pain. If the creature had the organs that were required for speech, it would have proclaimed its pure, unadulterated pain. But it couldn't speak- it just roared.  
  
The immense blast of air coming from the dragon's mouth befouled the air in its wake, and killed villagers and animals by the dozen. Flowers wilted by just being near the completely evil creature. It's tail whipped about and caught Cloud in the chest. It dislodged one of his bones and put him out of the fight. That was when his loyal band of allies ran up, bellowing battle cries, into the fight. They fought ingeniously, and their attacks severely disabled the foul creature. But it was useless, as even one hit took them into the land of unconsciousness. Cid was the only one still awake, and as his last action he cast a powerful spell of curing upon Cloud, and also several magicks that would protect him from the evil dragon's attacks. Just as he was about to cast a powerful dweomer of regeneration upon Cloud, the dragon brought up its great maw and snapped down, gulping poor Cid into its gullet and chewing very loudly, as to disgust Cloud greatly.  
  
Salty tears of pain and sorrow fell freely from Cloud's eyes as he took up his Buster Sword. His dislocated arm was still useless, so he carried it one handed. The dragon charged him, and he hopped to the side, bringing his huge blade down upon it's neck. The sharp sword hurt it, of course, but even the keenest edge in the world could not completely sever the thing's neck. It lunged forward, seeking to make Cloud it's next snack. Cloud dodged deftly and swung the sword. This time the agile dragon's neck snaked out of his way. Cloud expected the creature to attempt a counter attack by biting him, and moved to defend himself from that, but the dragon expected that and slashed at the warrior brutally with its claws, leaving several jagged wounds across his side and sending red blood onto the white snow. The dragon snarled and and bit at Cloud ferociously. Cloud did nothing to dodge. Instead he held out his long sword in front of him, impaling the creature's maw upon it. It somehow managed to tear itself loose from the wicked edge of the blade, and again slashed at Cloud with its claw. This time it got his face, and scarred it beyond recognition. Cloud fell, and his crimson lifeblood stained the snow further. Just as the dragon was going to slash Cloud once more, A strange metal object shifted out of the snow. The dragon looked to its side, where it had noticed the thing coming out of the freezing landscape. It looked at it with curiousity for a moment, and turned back to Cloud, eager to kill him. Then the gun-arm started pumping lead into the prone creature, sending dark ichor flying into the snow. The monster turned around in a rage, and caught a frenzy of bullets in its face. Blinded and injured, it fell to the ground. Then Cloud received a cure spell from an unkown source and stood up. He knew what to do now. The bleeding man ran valiantly to the fallen creature as Barret peppered it with even more bullets, and plunged his sword right into its heart. It did not even cry as its head slumped down and blood screamed from the chest wound. It disintegrated, leaving Cid's bones visible within its stomach. Cloud wiped his brow, and fell right asleep on the spot, exhausted. Meanwhile, Barret pulled himself up out of the snow.  
  
Some Time Later...  
  
Tifa(Who had apparently died during the struggle) and Cid were given a proper funeral and buried solemnly. Red went on to propagate his species, and soon they were no longer on the verge of extinction. Vincent married Yuffie and moved to Wutai. Barret became a reknowned gunsmith and settled down with Marlene in Kalm. Cait Sith became the most accurate and famous fortune teller the world had ever known. Cloud was famous, too, but he did not acknowledge it. The skilled swordsman simply wandered, righting wrongs where he could. he visited Kalm many times, Wutai occasionally, and the Gold Saucer even less, but remained good friends with everyone. Sephiroth stayed dead, thankfully.  
  
THE END 


End file.
